Kenya drought: Poor leadership blamed for hunger

Agriculture PS Prof Hamadi Iddi Boga during a Transform Kenya forum on Food Security at Strathmore University school of Business. [Edward Kiplimo/Standard]

The current drought in most parts of the country has been blamed on poor leadership in the agricultural sector.

Principal Secretary in the State Department of Agricultural Research Hamadi Boga (pictured) said the fact that some regions are food sufficient is a reflection of poor management of resources.

“What we need is to develop a mechanism of moving food from regions of sufficiency to where there is a need,” he said.

Prof Boga spoke yesterday at the opening of a workshop on resolving the leadership crisis in Africa’s agricultural sector at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

He underscored the need for leadership to ensure the success of the devolution system of governance, especially the interphase between the national and county governments.

“We need the right leadership to resolve the political interest in development projects. Even in issues of food security, synchronising the national and county interests is critical to resolving the challenges we face as a country,” said the PS.

The workshop was part of a six-day Being a Leader course attended by delegates from Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Zambia.

The course coordinator Margaret Oloko said leadership deficiency in the agricultural sector and in the wider society needs urgent attention.

Conceptual aspects

“Over the years, leadership programmes have focused on the conceptual aspects which made participants merely know more about leadership, but these programmes don’t leave participants being leaders,” she said.

Dr Oloko said the College of Human Development at JKUAT would continue to be innovative in the way it teaches leadership to make a difference in agriculture and the wider society.

“At the core of the course is practising a new model of integrity, without which nothing works,” she said.